“Words matter”

Today is the sixth legislative day of nine, and, as of this post, 411 resolutions out of the 489 total have yet to be completed. Many will be dealt with via consent calendars which ask for a “yes” or “no” vote on a whole group of resolutions at a time.

Some of the high profile topics receiving individual consideration include:

• three resolutions on immigration that the legislative committee on social justice and U.S. policy is putting forward. These three, according to Episcopal News Service, here, “combine parts of several resolutions on immigration into broad, forceful statements on the issues of separation of families in immigrant detention, the sanctuary church movement and the dignity of immigrants in the face of federal policies that, deputies and bishops say, go against the Episcopal Church’s Christian values.”

• a resolution on full access churchwide to two trial-use marriage rites for all couples, which, after many amendments, passed the House of Deputies on Monday and now goes to the House of Bishops for consideration (read more here). The rites were approved for trial use in 2015, but bishops of eight domestic dioceses subsequently refused to allow their use. This resolution seeks to remedy the situation.

• a resolution on financial investment in Israel and Palestine, passed by the House of Deputies and now going to the House of Bishops for consideration, that seeks “to end the Episcopal Church’s complicity in the 51-year old occupation” by directing “the Executive Council’s Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility to develop a human rights social criteria investment screen.” This topic was controversial enough when proposed at the last General Convention that it didn’t make it to the floors for action. Read more here.

• the resolution approved by the House of Deputies to begin a process toward prayer book revision stalled after much debate in the House of Bishops yesterday, which The Living Church covers here. It is scheduled for a vote in the House of Bishops today.

“Words matter, words matter, they really matter,” Massachusetts deputy Fredrica Harris Thompsett says in this video by Katie Forsyth for House of Deputies News, which includes several Episcopal Church leaders discussing #MeToo and the church.